Tag Archives: jaras

I am a mixture of emotions, below the surface of a stoic exterior… I could easily throw these individual feelings into categories that are all too familiar to us, but I believe that they deserve more respect than a mere assumption. My soul percolates, in search of what it all means, to me. “What are these feelings that I feel? They can’t all be the same 4 or 5 that I always hear about”. The complexity of that search is so enjoyable. It’s also one that requires time and patience, the latter of which I am trying to further cultivate. I liken the search, through the prism of my emotions, to the photography that I have been interested in, for years, by a man named Alan Jaras. Alan developed the technique of Lensless Photography using light, a camera body and a refractive object to form ‘Refractographs’ directly on to film. It’s his explanation of that technique that has my attention:

“I have always been fascinated in visualising the invisible. After a long career in industrial scientific research using optical and electron microscopy to image the microscopic world I now explore the strange and wonderful world of the refraction patterns of light. Working with glass, plastics and resins I capture these unique patterns formed by a single static beam of light after it passes through the complex transparent objects that I create.”

It sounds scientific and, undoubtedly, it is but there’s something beautiful in the way that he describes the light and the result of it, passing through the object that he creates. “Vizualizing the invisible”…Man, what a concept. I look inward, at the images that circulate through my subconscious, and I see layers. Layers of my mind and the different things that I can possibly be feeling. My thoughts are certainly less scientific than what Mr. Jaras explained but I want to understand the invisible, rather than “visualizing” it. Learning about those intricacies is such an adventure. The possibilities are endless and the results can, and will, affect your whole world. I am a mixture of emotions, below the surface of a stoic exterior…